


flares

by QueenOfTheWesternSky



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Disordered Eating, Lio is having a bad time, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28712640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheWesternSky/pseuds/QueenOfTheWesternSky
Summary: There’s a lot of things no one tells you about saving the world--Lio learns this very quickly after the promare are gone.He supposes those kinds of stories have always existed. The world is saved, and obviously that means everyone lives happily ever after. Or if they don’t, it didn’t matter because the story was over and you didn’t have to think about what happened next. The End.In reality, it didn’t really work like that.(Or: Lio is trying to cope, it's a work in progress. The people around him try to be supportive.)
Relationships: Lio Fotia & Gueira & Meis, Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	flares

There’s a lot of things no one tells you about saving the world--Lio learns this very quickly after the promare are gone. 

He supposes those kinds of stories have always existed. The world is saved, and obviously that means everyone lives happily ever after. Or if they don’t, it didn’t matter because the story was over and you didn’t have to think about what happened next. The End. 

In reality, it didn’t really work like that. Lio was beginning to have a grudge against most movies he had ever seen--not that he’d ever had a lot of time for things like that, but Meis and Gueira did occasionally strong-arm him into doing things that might be considered fun. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, it was just the fact that there was always something that needed to be taken care of, and he was the one who needed to take care of it.

That hadn’t changed now that the world had been saved. In fact, it had only gotten worse.

Lio loved the burnish with everything he had. If he didn’t, he didn’t think they would have made it this far. He liked to think that, in turn, the burnish loved him also. In theory, this was a wonderful thing, and not anything he wanted to take for granted

In practice, it meant he was the one everyone came to when they needed help. And there wasn’t a single living burnish (ex-burnish?) that didn’t need help now. 

“You should rest, boss.” Meis says, giving him a look that Lio doesn’t appreciate right off the bat. 

“Can’t, busy, go mother hen Gueira.”

One of the first things Lio noticed that all the stories had left out about saving the world was the ability to sleep. Not that he had ever been especially prone to being well-rested in the first place. Too many people depended on him, there was simply no time for resting. Though at the behest of his generals, he had usually managed a few hours a night. 

That had all changed after the Parnassus. Everything had changed after the Parnassus.

“Boss...” He’s worried. Lio knows he’s worried. He knows that the second Meis, Gueira and finally Galo had managed to bully him out of more clearing of the rubble left by the Parnassus, he’s been doing paperwork--who knew existing as a real person in a society involved so much paperwork?

He had been bouncing back and forth between clearing the rubble, finding space for the Burnish who now needed somewhere to go, and dealing with the tedious legalities of the Burnish now being people. People who needed homes, and jobs, and food, and for whatever reason, to be legally registered with the tax department. If he told himself that the reason he wasn’t sleeping was solely because of this--he was busy, he didn’t have the time and obviously when he did have the time (as if that was ever going to happen), he would--then that was no one’s business but his own.

Then everything would be fine, and he wouldn’t have to think about the night terrors, the waking up in a cold sweat, the constant gnawing feeling that just around the corner was another enemy that was going to freeze him, bind him, suck the life out of him in some horrible machine to power his own ambitions, feel what he was sure was his soul being removed while his body began to disintegrate.

If he pretended it was because he was busy working, and for no other reasons that sleep was simply not possible, then the world was just easier to manage right now. 

“I told you I’m fine, Meis. Really. Go. Rest. Make sure you eat something.”

Food.

That was another thing he didn’t realise one had to forfeit to save the world. 

He doesn’t know what exactly it is that Kray’s machine did to him, or was in the process of doing to him. There are reports about it from Aina’s sister, and from Lucia taking one of the pods apart with a mad scientist's glee, but he hasn’t read them. He doesn’t think he could stomach it. Not that he can stomach much. 

At some point it had become vastly easier to forego eating all together unless strictly necessary, than to try and eat while smiling weakly at a worried Galo who had noticed he wasn’t eating, only to end up throwing it all up again, locked in Burning Rescue’s bathroom on his knees, retching until his ribs ached. 

The look Meis gives him tells him he is far less subtle about all of this than he wanted to believe he was. Or maybe just that he spends too much time with Meis. He stares down at Lio with a well-balanced mix of concern and judgment, at Lio’s bad posture sitting at an old desk in a corner of Burning Rescue no one was using, surrounded by his mountains of paperwork. 

“I’ll tell Galo.”

That was a threat if ever he’d heard one. 

“Don’t you fucking dar--,”

“GALO.” Meis is already off, turning on his heel and storming through the station with purpose. Lio vaults his desk to chase after him. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He asks, falling into a quick step beside him. 

“I’m calling in the big guns--since Gueira isn’t here, we’re calling in the himbo.”

“That’s ridiculous, why would you even involve him?” 

Meis gives him a look that is no longer a balance of anything but judgment. Lio misses the days where Meis used to at least pretend to respect him--though those were long ago and had been extremely short-lived. “You’re incapable of saying no to him--which is good, ‘cause all you ever say to me or Gueira is no. So it all works out in the end--GALO!”

“Someone called?” A loud, but unfairly cheerful voice calls out. 

“I’ll kill you in your sleep.” Lio hisses.

Meis smirks. “Whatever you say, boss.” That downright evil smirk quickly turns into a scheming grin as an altogether rather dirty Galo emerges from the other room of the station. “Galo, callin’ in reinforcements, pal. Lio hasn’t eaten or slept in at least thirty hours.”

“Lio!” Galo’s voice was the pinnacle of ‘not angry, just disappointed’. Which he thinks is probably why he gets away with it, with the aggressive won’t-take-no-for-an-answer mother henning into self-care that Lio would never tolerate from anyone else. 

“It is not that bad, Meis is overreacting--don’t you even think about running off now that you’ve brought him into this you little shit--,”

“Sorry, can’t stay, Very busy. Galo, make sure he eats something and send him to bed would you?” And then the bastard ducked through a doorway and was gone before Lio could do a damn thing to stop him. 

Asshole. 

Which left him staring up at all 6’2” of very disappointed Galo. Galo who had tried in his own subtle way (by which Lio meant not subtle at all) to nudge him into taking better care of himself at least three times this week. “Lio.” His voice is gentle and concerned and Lio almost wants to hit him for it. “When’d you last sleep?”

“Psh, not...that...long ago.” Numbers, quick, he needs to think of numbers--reasonable numbers in the context of a time he could have slept but he was here when Galo last went home to rest and he was still here now and Galo had been helping work on the truck for at least the last four hours which meant--

Fuck.

“C’mon, we’re going home, I’ll drive.” Galo says in his usual cheerful manner with a steely undertone. He was not going to budge on this one. 

This would not stop Lio from trying. “You just got here, Ignis will be mad if you bail on your shift and--,”

“Nope, don’t even worry about it I’ll get someone to cover for me. C’mon, bike. Go.” 

He doesn’t remember most of the ride to Galo’s apartment--where he does not technically live--because he spends almost all of it with his face squished into Galo’s back, which is unfairly warm, mostly unconscious. 

He is not tired and he does not need to sleep.

Or maybe he’s just afraid to sleep. 

“Y’know for someone who isn’t tired and definitely slept recently, you sure were snoring the entire ride.” Galo says as they climb off the bike, Lio trudging toward the apartment building’s door like he was walking to his own execution. 

“I don’t snore.” Lio insisted.

Somehow through sheer dumb luck, Galo managed to be one of about three people in the entirety of Promepolis whose home was not horribly damaged in the whole Parnassus, end of the world ordeal. No, the charmingly rundown little apartment building--three stories with a rooftop that Galo planned on turning into a garden if he ever had the free time, apparently--still stood exactly as it had before the world had ended. Almost. 

It wasn’t the first time Lio had ended up here, despite technically sharing a very cramped apartment on the other side of town with Meis and Gueira--it could barely house one of them, let alone all three--for the few hours a week he did manage to sleep, it was generally on Galo’s couch or in one of the cots at Burning Rescue.

Lio remembered the first time he’d been brought here--after Galo found out he’d been sleeping (or more accurately not sleeping) at the cots at the station, which he deemed ‘torture’, he had insisted that his couch was infinitely more comfortable and Lio was coming with him. He had really and truly expected to walk into a college dorm nightmare of dirty laundry and empty pizza boxes. 

But the reality was well...Galo’s apartment barely felt lived in. There were touches of it, here and there, like a blanket draped over the back of the couch, or a pot plant that had seen better days, but more than anything it made Lio realise just how much time Galo spent working--working to the point where he too often just slept in one of the bunks at the station house.

It was something they had in common that Lio really hadn’t expected.

The one major change he’d noticed in the apartment lately, since he’d started being dragged here against his will--sort of--was the couch constantly being made up as a very neat bed for him to sleep on. The blankets had even been washed since the last time he’d been there. 

Lio has to wonder if being so goddamn nice all the time is half as tiring as he thinks it is. 

“Kitchen. Now. I’ll make some noodles or something before you get some sleep. You gotta remember to eat! Jeez, Lio, I’ve never met anyone half as bad at looking after themselves as you are.” Galo chattered cheerily as they walked into the apartment, walking straight to the stove to get started, despite being half covered in engine grease. Galo wasn’t a masterchef by any means, but he wasn’t completely hopeless at it either--another thing Lio hadn’t really anticipated. 

The guy just put so much energy into firefighting, Lio found it baffling that he had the energy for anything else--like cooking, or vacuuming the rug. 

Maybe he really did need to get some sleep.

But he follows Galo to the kitchen all the same, perching himself on the same barstool he does every time and waits to be presented whatever Galo prepared. 

“I just get busy, it’s not half as bad as Meis and Gueira make it sound.” Lio huffs, all of his focus on a small crack in the benchtop rather than the inevitable concerned look on Galo’s face. 

“Maybe, but you’ve been busy ever since the Parnassus. You don’t stop! I used to think I was bad--Aina’d get all on my back about it, but I gotta say you might be worse! No offence.”

He thinks Galo might be looking at the stove when he flinches, he hopes he is. 

_ Parnassus.  _

“You alright?”

Crap. 

“Fine and dandy, like I keep telling everyone. Really.” Lio said, like his stomach wasn’t turning at the very mention of the Parnassus. His fingertips started to tingle like he had pins and needles, like they might just start to disintegrate again, like he was one mistake away from ending up in one of those pods again. 

Galo didn’t look totally convinced. Which was one of the more unfortunate things about Galo--he didn’t have an ounce of tact in him, and maybe he wasn’t always the most booksmart, but the guy seemed to pick up on the emotions of everyone around him like he was honing a radar or something. It might’ve been charming if it wasn’t so pinpoint accurate when directed at him. 

“It’s alright if you’re not y’know. It’s been a weird couple of months after all.” Galo said, stirring the pot. Lio was suddenly very interested in examining his cuticles--he doesn’t know when he started picking at them so aggressively. But sometimes his fingers ache from it.

“Whole world’s had a weird couple of months, but things being weird doesn’t stop the work coming in, or the people needing help.” He should really get back, there were a bunch of forms he had to go through about rental properties, public housing, why did it all have to be so--

A bowl of macaroni and cheese is set before him, and Galo’s mouth is twisted in something not quite a frown. “I think I’ve finally figured out how Aina felt every time she told me to go home and sleep and instead I ended up crashing while cleaning the truck.”

“Must be karma.” Lio replied, stuffing his mouth full of cheesy goodness before he could say anything else.

Other things recently learned about Galo Thymos include: he hovers like a worried mother. Lio doesn’t think he knows he’s doing it, because if he did, he might at least pretend like he’s not doing exactly that. 

He eats, and Galo watches to make sure he does--even if the roiling in his stomach tells him it’ll be a miracle if he keeps this down. God, he misses feeling anything but empty. His whole body has started to ache with hunger, with the exhaustion of heaving up everything he tries to put into himself to keep him going--like his body wasn’t already an aching mess. 

They sit on the couch, and watch some dumb soap opera--someone’s husband was cheating with the twin sister or something, why were there so many twins in soap operas? Lio feels Galo’s eyes on him every few minutes, glancing over to make sure he’s still there, make sure he’s not unconscious or on fire or about to implode within the next thirty seconds. 

Really, all three are totally possible and Lio can’t help but think Galo might be onto something. It’s about the fifth time Galo has yawned in the past twenty seconds when Lio finally breaks. 

“You should sleep if you’re tired. You don’t have to babysit me you know. Besides, I’m supposed to be sleeping isn’t that the whole point of being here?” Galo makes a face--a ridiculous one, if Lio was less tired, he might’ve laughed--and it only gets worse with every word he says.

“I know I just--,” 

“Then stop. Stop worrying. I’m fine. I’m gonna go to sleep, you go to sleep, everyone wins, and you can tell Meis to stop worrying as well. Win-win-win.”

Galo is so absurdly reluctant to leave the room, and Lio’s chest aches with an unwelcome fondness. He lingers at the doorway to the hall, and Lio gives him a baffled little smile. “I’m fine, Galo. Really. Go to sleep.” 

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright, I just--if something’s wrong, you can talk to me about it, y’know that right? I know we don’t exactly go way back or anything--you’ve got Meis and Gueira for that--but...we went through a lot there for a minute, together. So I’m here, alright?”

Lio doesn’t know how a single person can go around being so goddamn sincere all the time, and have survived this long, heart on his sleeve somehow not being battered to death. 

“I know. Thanks, Galo, you’re...you’re a good friend. But really, I’m okay.” Lio almost feels bad for lying to him. Almost.

About ten minutes later, distantly, Lio can hear the sound of someone snoring. He smiles for a moment, staring into darkness of the room where he laid, curled up on his side on the couch. It was going to be a long, long night.

  
  
  


It’s a little after four when Lio carefully folds up the blankets on the couch and shuffles towards the front door, beside which he left his boots. If the snoring echoing down the hall is any indicator, Galo is still soundly asleep and will stay that way for quite some time. Good. For all the worrying he does about Lio, he doesn’t get nearly enough rest in his own bed.

The city is dark still, and cold. There isn’t yet any hint of the impending sunrise over the tall buildings surrounding him as he walks further downtown. Not for the first time, he misses Detroit. Not for the first time, he misses his Promare, shuffling down the street in his still somehow too thin leather jacket.

He knows he could have just waited until Galo woke up--gotten a ride to work. Or hell, called Meis for a ride back to the cramped apartment the three of them now shared, even if Lio never slept there. But instead he trudges along, trying not to think about the cold, or the nearly non-existent amount of sleep he had gotten. 

Or the dreams he’d had.

It’s nearly six am when he makes it back to the apartment he’s supposed to be living in that still somehow feels like he’s crashing on Meis and Gueira’s couch. 

Not that he could at the moment, because Meis and Gueira are crashed on the aforementioned couch. Kind of. Meis is out like a light, sprawled in a manner that could not possibly be comfortable, mouth half-open, while Gueira was drawing intricate patterns up Meis’ arm in sharpie. 

Good to know they could be trusted to be left alone for literally one night. 

“Oh hey boss, where ya been?” Gueira throws one of those easy smiles that only seem to be for the three of them while Lio collapses into the one and only armchair they have--which does not even slightly match the couch. He doesn’t ask where the furniture came from honestly, he doesn’t really want to know. There’s the dull sound of some infomercial on, trying to sell them on some kitchen appliance they didn’t need, but Lio knew Meis might consider buying anyway.

As if any of them had shit like credit cards to be buying kitchen appliances with. 

“Don’t even start, I know that rat bastard told you about how he narced on me to Galo.” He grumbled, kicking off his boots as he hugged his knees to his chest.

Gueira broke out that shit-eating grin of his. “Yeah, he did. Get much sleep?”

“I started walking here at four am, what do you think?”

“You could’ve called for a ride y’know.”

“And missed catching frostbite while walking past a 7/11 in these shoes clearly made for walking? I think not.” He huffed. Despite the apparently unacceptable amount of sleep he’d gotten, it was still the most well-rested Lio had been in days. Which made for something kind of close to good humour. 

“Dunno why you even bother coming back here, I can’t remember the last time you were here for more than an hour or two.” Gueira mused, seemingly getting bored with giving Lio infuriating looks and turning back to drawing all over Meis’ arm. 

“‘cause you two would have to pay the rent on your own and then I’d have to live with Galo.” He said, like he didn’t in fact enjoy Galo’s company--and find him an oddly pleasant temporary roommate when he was there.

“First off, those firefighter fucks pay well, we could totally afford this place on our own. Second of all, you like the blue-haired moron. Don’t lie. I know you. No one’s ever accused you of  _ good  _ taste in men, mostly ‘cause it’s a miracle to see you like anyone at all.” The longer Lio looks, the more he starts wondering when the last time Gueira slept was. Surely Meis was keeping an eye on him too right? When had Lio started relying on Meis to take care of them in the first place?

“I don’t like Galo’s couch that much.”  _ Was a nice couch though.  _ “And I might miss you idiots. Shove over before I change my mind.”

For a moment it looked like Gueira was going to say something, but instead there’s a resigned sigh and him shoving over with zero concern for waking Meis--who could sleep through almost anything anyway. Lio flopped down beside him, dropping his head onto Gueira’s shoulder and tugging some of the blanket onto his lap. 

There’s a moment of silence, except for the excited overly perky blonde woman on the TV once again exalting the virtues of some weird appliance, and then Gueira speaks once more. “For the record, we’d miss you too boss.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Flares by The Script, which I highly recommend listening to for some quality post-Promare Lio feelings. I don't know when this is going to be updated, but chapter two is currently underway and will hopefully be up soon.


End file.
